Once he was back home, he was visited by
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 p ...
and his daughter, who proclaimed that Joseph had become "the Philosopher" of socialism. By 1870, Marx had embraced Dietzgen as a friend, and later praised him and his theory of dialectical materialism in the 2nd edition of the first volume of
Das Kapital
''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in Historical mater ...
.
On June 8, 1878, Dietzgen was arrested following the publication of a lecture he gave in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
: ''The future of the social democracy.'' He spent 3 months in prison on remand before his trial was held. Although Joseph was released along with copies of his article, he was re-arrested twice and finally released. In 1881 Joseph sent his son Eugene to the United States in order to avoid the Kaiser's upcoming army draft, to safeguard his articles and documents, as well as to secure a family home in the new world. Young Eugene was 19 when he arrived in New York, but quickly jump started a thriving family business in Chicago, the
Eugene Dietzgen Company. It became one of the world's top drafting and surveying supply manufacturers and distributors and remained such through most of the 20th century. The company still exists today as a division of Nashua Paper, and its two buildings still stand in Chicago's now trendy
Printer's Row
Printers Row, also known as Printing House Row, is a neighborhood located in the south of the Chicago downtown area known as the Loop. The heart of Printers Row is generally defined by Ida B. Wells Drive on the north, Polk Street on the south, P ...
and Lincoln Park areas. During this period, Eugene and Joseph kept in close contact through extensive letters which are currently being documented and published. In the same year, Joseph ran for the elections of the German ''
Reichstag'' (the parliament), but emigrated in 1884 to New York City. He moved to Chicago two years later, where he became editor at the ''
Arbeiterzeitung''. Unfortunately Joseph's death in 1888 marked an end to his son's dependency, but his family line would continue to be part of some of the biggest engagements of the 20th century; from World War I, to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, to the heart of World War II.
Dietzgen's words and life have for some underscored the unity that existed on the political left at the time of the
First International
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation
An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as ...
, before Anarchists, Revolutionaries, and Social Democrats were later divided: "For my part, I lay little stress on the distinction, whether a man is an anarchist or a socialist, because it seems to me that too much weight is attributed to this difference." In this, he acted to reconcile
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
s and
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
s (see
Anarchism and Marxism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful
. The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Slevin, Carl (2003). McLean, Aiaun; McMillan, Allista ...
).
Dietzgen was later figured on a stamp by the
German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
.
Dialectical materialism
Dietzgen's most important contribution to Marxism was arguably his philosophical theory of
dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world con ...
, a means of understanding the world which draws from
Feuerbach's materialism
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...
and
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
's
dialectic
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
. The same principles were developed independently by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and applied to their writings, of which the
Communist Manifesto
''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Comm ...
in particular had great influence on Dietzgen before he began writing.
His works were quoted extensively by Lenin in the latter's philosophical polemic, ''
Materialism and Empiriocriticism
''Materialism and Empirio-criticism'' ( Russian: ''Материализм и эмпириокритицизм, Materializm i empiriokrititsizm'') is a philosophical work by Vladimir Lenin, published in 1909. It was an obligatory subject of study ...
'' – notably the second to last work as against the very last, which is ignored entirely. Hence a list of Dietzgen's relevant philosophical works with accompanying dates of composition – not publication – can help to elucidate his philosophical evolution. He is also mentioned four times in Lenin's late ''Philosophical Notebooks'' (Collected Works, Vol. 38., Lawrence & Wishart, 1980) e.g. on pages 403 - 406 alongside Feuerbach.
Georgi Plekhanov wrote on Dietzgen's philosophy, and this quotation with the quotation within it may be useful to provide the setting for the kind of arguments that his work provoked:
"Now to Joseph Dietzgen. His son, Eugene Dietzgen, in a preface to the Russian translation, also describes his father’s philosophical teaching as an important supplement to Marxism (p iv). He says:
If the founders of historical materialism, and their followers, in a whole series of convincing historical investigations, proved the connection between economic and spiritual development, and the dependence of the latter, in the final analysis, on economic relations, nevertheless they did not prove that this dependence of the spirit is rooted in its nature and in the nature of the universe. Marx and Engels thought that they had ousted the last spectres of idealism from the understanding of history. This was a mistake, for the metaphysical spectres found a niche for themselves in the unexplained essence of the human spirit and in the universal whole which is closely associated with the latter. Only a scientifically verified criticism of cognition could eject idealism from here. (p iv)
Despite all our respect for the noble memory of the German worker-philosopher, and despite our personal sympathy for his son, we find ourselves compelled to protest resolutely against the main idea of the preface from which we have just quoted. In it, the relationship of Joseph Dietzgen to Marx and Engels is quite wrongly stated"
Plekhanov may be arguing more with the son and the translator here rather than Joseph Dietzgen, however. Note the following observation on logic by Joseph Dietzgen:
The red thread winding through all these letters deals with the following points: The instrument of thought is a thing like all other common things, a part or attribute of the universe. It belongs particularly to the general category of being and is an apparatus which produces a detailed picture of human experience by categorical classification or distinction. In order to use this apparatus g 255orrectly, one must fully grasp the fact that the world unit is multiform and that all multiformity is a unit.
It is the solution of the riddle of the ancient Eleatic philosophy: How can the one be contained in the many, and the many in one?
This explicit evocation of the
Eleatics
The Eleatics were a group of pre-Socratic philosophers in the 5th century BC centered around the ancient Italian Greek colony of Elea ( grc, Ἐλέα), located in present-day Campania in southern Italy.
The primary philosophers who are assoc ...
(Parmenides, Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos) does in fact seem to set Dietzgen apart from the mainstream of dialectical materialism that emerged from the works of Marx and Engels. It also seems to collide with current ideas about the "multiverse" common in scientific cosmology.
One of the more obvious problems of writing about a dialectical materialist philosopher like Dietzgen is the sheer lack of mainstream citations and reviews as third-party sources, which at least to an extent is due to political antagonism in the academy and, one might suppose, the lack of commercial pressure.
Death
Dietzgen died at home smoking a cigar. He had taken a stroll in
Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...
, and was having a political discussion in a "vivacious and excited" manner about the "imminent collapse of
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
production". He stopped in mid-sentence with his hand in the air – dead of paralysis of the heart. He is currently buried at the
Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery), in
Forest Park
A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment.
Examples Chile
* Forest Park, Santiago
China
*Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai
* Mufushan National Fores ...
, Chicago, a few feet away from the
Haymarket Martyrs
The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in ...
.
Major works
* ''Das Wesen der menschlichen Kopfarbeit'', 1869, engl "The Nature of Human Brainwork
* "The Religion of Social Democracy" (in six sermons from 1870 to 187
* "Scientific Socialis
(1873).
* "The Ethics of Social Democracy" (1875
* "Social Democratic Philosophy" (1876
* "The Inconceivable: a Special Chapter in Social-Democratic Philosophy" (1877).
* "The Limits of Cognition" (1877
https://www.marxists.org/archive/dietzgen/1887/positive-outcome/index.htm]
* "Our Professors on the Limits of Cognition" (187
* "Letters on Logic" (addressed to Eugen Dietzgen) (1880–1884).
* "Excursions of a Socialist into the Domain of Epistemology" (1886
* "The Positive Outcome of Philosophy" (1887).
More recent editions:
*''Nature of Human Brain Work: An Introduction to Dialectics'', Left Bank Books, Reprint 1984
*''Philosophical Essays on Socialism and Science, Religion, Ethics; Critique-Of-Reason and the World-At-Large'', Kessinger Publications, 2004,
*''The Positive Outcome of Philosophy; The Nature of Human Brain Work; Letters on Logic, Kessinger Publications'', 2007,
Collected writings
* Josef Dietzgen, ''Sämtliche Schriften'', hrsg. von Eugen Dietzgen, 4. Auflage, Berlin, 1930
* Joseph Dietzgen, ''Schriften in drei Bänden'', hrsg. von der Arbeitsgruppe für Philosophie an der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR zu Berlin, Berlin, 1961–1965
Secondary literature
English
*
Anton Pannekoek
Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (; 2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: ''radencommunisme'').
Biograp ...
: "The Standpoint and Significance of Josef Dietzgen's Philosophical Works" – Introduction to Joseph Dietzgen, ''The Positive Outcome of Philosophy'', Chicago, 1928
German
* SPD-Protokollnotizen S. 176; Liebknecht 1988, Biographisches Lexikon 1970, Dietzgen 1930, Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung, Digitale Bibliothek
* P. Dr. Gabriel Busch O.S.B.: Im Spiegel der Sieg, Verlag Abtei Michaelsberg, Siegburg 1979
* Josef Dietzgen, Sämtliche Schriften, hrsg. von Eugen Dietzgen, 4. Auflage, Berlin, 1930
* Joseph Dietzgen, Schriften in drei Bänden, hrsg. von der Arbeitsgruppe für Philosophie an der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR zu Berlin, Berlin, 1961–1965
* Otto Finger, Joseph Dietzgen – Beitrag zu den Leistungen des deutschen Arbeiterphilosophen, Berlin, 1977
* Gerhard Huck, Joseph Dietzgen (1828–1888) – Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte des Sozialismus im 19. Jahrhundert, in der Reihe Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Bochumer Historische Schriften, Band 22, Stuttgart, 1979,
* Horst Gräbner, Joseph Dietzgens publizistische Tätigkeit, unveröffentlichte Magisterarbeit an der J-W-G-Universität, Frankfurt/M, 1982
*
Anton Pannekoek
Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (; 2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: ''radencommunisme'').
Biograp ...
, "Die Stellung u. Bedeutung von J. Dietzgens philosophischen Arbeiten" in: Josef Dietzgen, ''Das Wesen der menschlichen Kopfarbeit ; Eine abermalige Kritik der reinen und praktischen Vernunft'', Stuttgart: J. H. W. Dietz Nachf., 1903
Dutch
* Jasper Schaaf, ''De dialectisch-materialistische filosofie van Joseph Dietzgen'', Kampen, 1993
References
External links
Joseph Dietzgen Archiveincludes interviews with Dietzgen's granddaughter and 145 page typescript of Dietzgen's 1880-84 correspondence with his son
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dietzgen, Joseph
1828 births
1888 deaths
People from Hennef (Sieg)
People from the Rhine Province
German atheists
Members of the International Workingmen's Association
19th-century philosophers
Marxist theorists
Atheist philosophers
Materialists
American Marxists
19th-century atheists
Burials at Forest Home Cemetery, Chicago